I grew up in the Lower East Side, an Italian American - more Sicilian, actually.

There's no such thing as simple. Simple is hard.

You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it.

Every scene is a lesson. Every shot is a school. Let the learning continue.

As a child I had terrible asthma.

More than ninety percent of directing a picture is the right casting

Now more than ever we need to talk to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we see the world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this.

I love movies - it's my whole life, and that's it.

Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out.

Always stay open to surprise.

I’m not interested in a realistic look, not at all, not ever. Every film should look the way I feel.

I remember his eyes. They are just like mine. Every time I look in the mirror I see him. I try not to look at my self too much.

Advertising is brilliant. It's an industry that spends billions and billions of dollars to get you to react the way it wants you to react.

Other countries have been taking advantage of America for decades - decades, and decades, and decades, folks. And we're not going to let that happen anymore. Not going to let it happen.

I know nothing and my heart aches

No man can tell if he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.

They came from all over the world to work out at Gold's Gym.

Beyond is all abyss, eternity, whose end no eye can reach.

You have to raise $100 million, probably, to be serious.

The quality of a society will be judged by what the least privileged in it achieves.

Lessons of Life: When you stop yearning, When you stop aspiring. You stop living.